


Fool's Mate

by typhe



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Innuendo, LHM, M/M, UST, loves you for your mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-27
Updated: 2012-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-30 04:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typhe/pseuds/typhe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stefen discovers how Vanyel prefers to play the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fool's Mate

This is impossible. 

There's absolutely no way forward that doesn't involve getting ripped to pieces, and I feel like a fool for not giving up ages ago; there's no fool like a persistent fool, is there? I don't even look up when the door opens; Vanyel makes some sound at the sight of me hunched over the table, book pinned open by paperweights, all my attention focused at the unspeakable aggravation laid out upon it, and to my passing rage I actually think he seems _amused_ by this sight.

"You're early," he notes.

"No, you're late." 

"Does it count as late if I told you I'd be late?" 

He sounds no happier about how he's spent his time than I am about how I've spent mine. "You're forgiven," I pledge him. "Duty and all that." 

"And politics." Right, he's not happy, but it's not my fault. He slides one of the weights aside and examines the book's cover. " _'Marryatt's Game Problems.'_ Haven't read that since I was a boy."

"I am told it's a classic of its kind." I hope he'll allow me to sound a little tired of it.

"Certainly a good starting point." He leafs past the first half, which is about chess - a game he seems to be adverse to for no particular reason. "It's missing all the newer tricks people have come up with, though."

People like him. Truly, I am destined to keep failing here. But I can't quit. "I knew you'd be late, and thought I may as well spend my time learning something. But I'm stuck on this one," I confess. "I was about to flick ahead to the back of the book and see if I understood the solution. But now you're here..."

He drops into his chair, eyes fixed onto the board. "You're playing the hinds, right?"

"Yes. Figured I needed to learn about their strategies."

"Trying to read my mind?" He smiles slightly, and I forcibly remind myself that he must be joking. He wouldn't do that. Not to cheat at a game, not to put one over on me, not ever. He steeples his fingers a pair at a time, calculating moves. "There's two different potential escape routes, depending on how exactly the pack chooses to give chase. Either way, you start by moving towards the lower left corner."

"But that's going _backwards_."

"Yes, and the pack can never advance quite fast enough to catch you before you can drive them off. Pace is the hinds' great strength, if you know how to use it."

I nod, and set the herd off in retreat. He fills in the hounds' moves for me, and with his advice and a couple of false starts, I can finally see the route to victory. "I should have known," I reproach myself. "I've seen you do that. Like a feint, pulling back and then kicking me down when I come after you."

"Survival _is_ winning, from that standpoint." I don't know what came up in Council, but it's left him feeling grim. He's still flicking through the book, glancing at the pages on pages of peculiar starting arrays. "What I always wonder is how one gets into these positions in the first place..." I drop my eyes, trying to convince myself to stop thinking of double meanings for every damn thing he says. "It must take terrible strategy to become a puzzle."

"And yet good strategy to get oneself out of one?"

"Paradoxical, and not entirely realistic. But then, no one takes turns in war." 

_Or in love_ , I can't help but think. But I don't say it. "Well, thanks for the advice. It's a lot easier having you on my side than against me."

"Any time. Want a game now?" he asks.

"Yes." I wonder...I know I'm not that likely to pull it off but I _have_ learned a thing or two today, and a few more things by watching his moves the last few weeks, and I really do want to try. "Mind if I play as the hinds for once?"

His elegant hands pause in arranging the board, and he spiders his fingers against its surface and rotates the game until the gathering herd sits before me. "As you wish." He looks at me curiously. "I know you're hardly a novice...have you played the hinds much before?"

"Oh, tons of times," I reply. "I've just never wanted to try it with _you_ , you monster."

 

It lasts for twelve breathless moves.

I raise my palms to him in surrender, and contemplate my riven herd, feeling not so much defeated as demolished. "You..." He appears completely serene, not even smiling. " _...bastard_ ," I finish, and he finally gives in and grins at me.

"It just takes a little experience, I swear," he assures me.

I want to tell him he doesn't need to be gentle with me. Ever. But that might be crossing the wavering line he's drawn between us, oh _gods_ he's exasperating. And brilliant. "Why do you even _play_ as hinds, if you can do _that_ from the hound side?"

He picks up one of the dogs and turns it in his fingers. "The hounds are too easy. I prefer playing hinds. Taking the seemingly weaker position...it's a lot more fun, once you know the game well. I enjoy the challenge."

He shrugs, and looks up at me, and _it happens_ ; the mask falls away and allows me a second of honest daylight. I swear it's not the first time. Every day or few. A flicker. A moment, a sentence of innuendo, or more. One none-too-innocent question cuts deep and brings out a response that sounds like he _wants_ to give it, to _me_ , because my asking makes him _want to let me in_ , and I see the flash of light in his eyes that reminds me that _something in him needs me_. It's all I live for and it's not enough for me and he's going to drive me mad, and oh _gods_ , he's just _shown_ me and _told_ me that I can't conquer him and he doesn't want or need to conquer me. 

"It's late," he murmurs, and it's gone again. Just like that. A note stilled.

"You're right," I concede. I'm tired and he wants me gone, and neither of those things help my mood much. I grab my instrument - still in its case, and take my leave with a mock-bow and a promise of more of the not-enough-same another day. He nods agreeably, and I wish I knew if he were thinking what I'm thinking. If I could see his face after the door closes, know what or who he'll think of when he lays down to sleep tonight...

I'm _so sure_ , but it doesn't matter, because he still closed the godsdamn door in my face and left me on the other side of it. I spin on one heel and lean my back against the wood; my blood feels hot enough to burn right through it, but still it stands.

I don't have anyone to be angry at except myself. I should have given up weeks ago, and I don't even know why I can't. It's those moments, I guess. The times my words press him, and he presses back. 

The times when he _wants_ me to figure out how the hell to get him out of this ridiculous standoff and into bed with me.

This one, I need to be alone to think about. Very alone. I'd always speculated as much, and now he's as good as told me that, yes, he does have a carnal preference and it's delightfully compatible with mine. Glad to know. Don't even mind that I had to fall on my face to get him to drop that hint, and I _really_ need to get back to my room now, and oh gods am I not going to fall asleep any time soon.  


**Author's Note:**

> I still haven't figured out why, given a first volume framed as a chess metaphor, Van & Stef don't just play chess...unless the power disparity really is meant to be significant. ;)


End file.
